SoCal Bakery Tour, Day 2

Hey guys! Yesterday I shared some photos of all the treats Jenny and I managed to find during our quick weekend in San Diego. On Sunday we left sunny San Diego and continued our informal SoCal bakery tour up the coast to Orange County and Newport Beach. Newport Beach is lucky enough to have Jenny as a full-time resident, and she knew all the places we should hit. Our first stop was her new fav, A Market.

By the way, sorry for the Instagram overload these past two posts. It’s an addicting new toy and I can’t stop playing with it! I personally love the photos, but I love the big camera photos too. Thank you for indulging me. I promise I’ll be taking my big camera back to California soon and it might even need a passport later this month. But more on that later!

We got some delicious cookies here, including a giant homemade Oreo. My favorite was the peanut butter cookie, so yum!

Okay, this was the cutest little place. As the name suggests, they have mini, personal-sized bundt cakes in a variety of flavors, all with a cream cheese based frosting. You guys know I’m more of a buttercream frosting fan, but the red velvet cake we had here was out of the world, I’ve never tasted a red velvet cake as yummy as this one.

Now. Jenny and I have been to a lot of bakeries, but I can honestly say that 85°C was a first.

Click me!

Check out the insane line for this place, I’ve never been to a bakery with a bouncer at the door!

When we finally made it inside, we loaded up our tray with tons of goodies like this swiss roll and coffee creme brulee cake.

And this massive cream puff! We also got a few savory things, and if I went back, I’d definitely go for the savory. Not sure the sweets we tried were worth the wait, but just their plain, giant slice of toast was life changing. This place is definitely a carb-lovers dream come true!

On Monday morning Jenny treated me to a huge stack of her fabulously fluffy buttermilk pancakes with Nutella and homemade buttermilk syrup. Both of these recipes will be in her new cookbook which hits to stores next year, and I seriously cannot wait to get it in my hands.

Speaking of Jenny’s cookbook, after breakfast we popped by Matt Armendariz’s studio in Long Beach — they’re shooting Jenny’s cookbook this week — for a quick peek behind the scenes of her cookbook shoot. I even got to sample a few of the recipes they were photographing that day. Did I mention how much I cannot wait for this book to come out? Loved their gorgeous, organized prop room!

After the shoot we stopped by Frosted Cupcakery in Long Beach. We’re never sure what to expect, but all I can say is wow! We loved every single one of these cupcakes. That does not happen often! Up front is the salted caramel toffee cupcake and it blew me away. Way in the back was a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting topped with crushed Butterfingers. Knocked my socks off. We also ordered two vanilla cupcakes — one with Nutella frosting and the other with vanilla buttercream — the vanilla bean cake for these two cupcakes might be my favorite ever.

We had one more cupcake stop for the day, The Cupcake Store in Mission Viejo. Last November Jenny and I met up at Downtown Disney and they had a cupcake kiosk set up. Here are the photos from our day there. The funfetti cupcake was seriously one of my favorite cupcakes ever. I was so excited to go to the bakery in Mission Viejo and sample more from them.

Here we have Night and Day, Celebration (funfetti), Vanilla Bean, and Peanut Butter. These cupcakes definitely rank up there in my top favorites. Loved this cute shop.

On my last day in California I woke up at Jenny’s to the smell of her cinnamon streusel topped pumpkin bread baking in the oven.

Let me just linger on that for a moment.

I woke up to the smell of cinnamon streusel topped pumpkin bread baking in the oven.

Oh my word. Talk about the most incredible aroma ever. The most delicious bread ever. The most life altering experience in my pitiful carb-loving existence. I was rendered speechless and left with nothing but moans and groans upon inhaling this slice of pure ecstasy.

Sorry. But it’s true.

And yet somehow we still had room for brunch before I left for Alabama. Can you see what I loved about Plums Cafe? The font, of course! We split the Santa Fe eggs benedict and this massive dutch-baby pancake. My favorite was the savory again, the chipotle cilantro hollandaise sauce on the eggs benedict was fabulous! I need this in my life. I guess I am used to my southern upbringing and savory breakfasts, every morning my mom fixed eggs, grits, toast and bacon before school.

We had time for one last quick bakery stop before I had to head back to Alabama. They had to pry me out of California kicking and screaming. Susie Cakes was absolutely adorable. There were too many fun treats, I wanted to try them all. The peanut butter cookie sandwich with peanut butter buttercream frosting was divine. The funfetti cake was heaven. The ice cream cone shaped frosted sugar cookie was perfection. And the sugar cookie up front with the little ice cream cone cut out — the pink frosting was strawberry flavored and the other was chocolate — was glorious.

This sweet, crazy face was waiting for me at the airport when I landed back home. I missed this little munchkin.

OMG! Amanda these all look so delicious! I am sitting here drooling on my laptop! lol One question? How in the world do you stay looking so fab and eating all of these desserts? I would be so overweight and you look so darn good!

Everything looks so good and is making me more excited for the awaiting sugar coma at Gigi’s Cupcakes tomorrow. I confess I do miss the vibrance and crispness of the “big camera” pics. But I know what it’s like to be excited about a new toy! :-)

I actually live in Orange County and I really need to hit some of these places, DEE-LISH! I have been to 85ºC since I work in Irvine, and the line was definitely not that long! It was there that I tried the most exotic thing that I’ve ever eaten…a squid ink roll! Completely black from the ink, but mostly tasted like garlic. And I’ll never eat it again LOL I couldn’t wrap my head around it and it haunted me for days after.

Nothing Bundt Cake is such a weakness. In CA it is a known fact if you live by this bakery and you are having any sort of shower Nothing Bundt Cake will be served! I believe shower guests may strike if there is any other dessert served. I still laugh when I see a bundt cake and think of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. There’s a whole in the cake!

Oooh, oooh! I became addicted to 85C in Taiwan, and I’m so excited you got to try it. This probably reveals my midwestern ignorance, but I didn’t even know there were any 85Cs in the states. Now I’m dreaming of slurping a mango smoothie through a big fat straw…

Another fellow SoCal OC resident here, and what a nice photo tease of all the lovely cupcake sweets here. I have upcake envy. I have been at Matt’s oh so fabulous studio…the color coordinated prop room and awesome Adam. Love them!!!

I have been to 85 degrees many times…the lines are always way too long. I love their blueberry filled sweets and challah bread. Plums is fantastic, too. I’m looking forward to more of this pumpkin streusal bread…you had me at pumpkin!

Hi Amanda – Since you love baking and such so much, I thought I would share this little ditty that came across my email from a family member. I haven’t tried it yet…but thought you could put it too the test and, if interesting, write about it. This a recipe for a ‘CAKE FOR ONE’ :

In bowl, mix, 3 tbsp milk, 3 tbsp oil, 3 tbsp of choc chips, 1 egg, beat and mix in, 4 tbsp of flour, 4 tbsp of sugar, 1 cap of vanilla, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon,2tbsp cocoa,mix up well. and pour into microwave safe coffee mug, . Put in micro wave, do NOT “pam” the cup, turn on high for 3 minutes. It will come up out of the cup during the 3 minutes. Remove from mi wave with hot pad, turn over on plate, it will drop out. cut in half and share , or eat it all your self. ….

My husband and I just got back from California too. We ate at Plums for brunch and I also had the Sante Fe eggs benedict. Wow! They were so good! I didn’t share…I ate it all up!! I’ll go back just for that :)

If you ever go to 85 degrees again you should definitely try some of their drinks. I love their milk tea and sea salt coffee. Their pastries like the ones you get in Asia, so they are catered to different kind of taste preference and not typically super sweet. I usually go for savory things =) Thanks for the taking us a long on your SoCal bakery tour!

A bakery with a bouncer! I love it. And I love cupcakes! Thanks for sharing, great photos. I am going to San Diego next year to see my sister so I will be hitting some of these places! Can’t wait! ~ Denise

OK, I can tell by his look, your little muchkin is saying, “where’s the Doggie Bag?” he he he! Reading your blog made me so hungry for something sweet – I’m headed off to my kitchen for some Zucchini Bread. Should just about be ready, mmmmm!

I gained at least five pounds just reading about what you ate…mmmmm! Couldn’t live without carbs. I love ‘em! How do you do it? Did you fly in a plane or flap your wings to get home? And what a face to greet you…I’ve got two of those mugs lookin’ at me right now.

Yummy! Need that recipe I think I need to wake up to that smell also! And never apologize for Instagrams – they are not bothersome at all. However, I much prefer real colors on the photos. Seeing them with fadeouts and vintage kinda filters makes them, well, not the same as seeing them in all their original gloriful colors.

What a mouth-watering post ;) I also live in SoCal, and you’ve given me a few new places to try! ;) By the way, is the recipe to that pumpkin bread on Jenny’s website? I looked, but couldn’t find it…it looks fabulous!

If you ever make it back to Newport Beach, make a stop by Fashion Island. Kevin’s aunt, Lula Halfacre, owns the GORGEOUS jewelry store there (Traditional Jewelers). It has been three or four years since we visited there, and I’m dying to go back!